Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Deeper Look at Salaries

I just got beaten in posting this by Gooch over at the Star who basically posted some of the same information. But I spent enough time working on this I'm going to post anyway.

Over the weekend, the MLS Players' Union put out the salaries for players through May 1st. When the list was released there were certainly a few questions about the list. Some of my original questions were based on the roster set up for the team. I've had some time to go through the roster rules again and I have a bit better understanding, but I still have some questions.

One of the questions is wondering how much cap space KC still has available for potential summer purchases to help SKC should they need it. This is based off of how many of the players are “Salary Budget Players” as the MLS rules call them. KC can have up to 20 of these players on their roster. The other 10 roster spots are “Off-Budget Players.” From looking at the roster and the salaries I see 17 players that are “Salary Budget Players” and 6 players that are “Off-Budget Players.” There are still 3 more players that I'm not sure of where they fit.

Just looking at the salaries of the 17 players, KC is using $2,407,918 of the $2,675,000 salary cap. That includes the $110,004 for Nikos Kounenakis. That would leave around $267,000 in cap space. But I think at least one of the 4 questionable players (Korede Aiyegbusi, Luke Sassano, CJ Sapong, and Graham Zusi) is on the “Salary Budget Players” list. This is because KC would be charged a fee for not filling at least 18 of those roster spots. All three make $42,000, so KC would have around $225,000 of cap space if all the numbers on the players union list are correct.

But that leads to another question, Omar Bravo's salary. Gooch at The Full 90 is trying to look into it, but has not been able to get a response from the players' union. The union's list says that Bravo's salary is only $120,000, which doesn't make sense as a designated player. Designated players cap hit is supposed to be $385,000. Now the cap hit can be lower if a transfer fee is used to bring the player to the league. But all the information back in August seemed to point to Bravo being a free agent, which would mean he should likely have a salary of $385,000. If Bravo is making the DP salary, then KC only has about $2,000. That's before factoring in one of the 4 questionable players.

With all four players making over that amount though, it would seem to point to KC being over the cap. But there are other things that likely knock KC below the cap again. 1) KC still has allocation money that they could use to pay down the salary to get people in under the cap hit. 2) Philadelphia could still be covering a portion of Shavar Thomas' salary. Last year when KC traded for Thomas, the Union covered a portion of his salary. It's possible that the Union is still covering a portion of Thomas' salary making it possible for KC to fit one of the other guys in under the cap.

If Bravo is on the designated player level, then KC doesn't really have much of any cap space left at all. So with that information, I would be more inclined to believe the listing on the players' union website. Which is still surprising.

Here is how I believe the players are divided up on Salary Budget vs Off-Budget